The aesthetic focus of the room is the tokonoma, or picture recess, set into one of the plaster walls, with a raised dais for its floor and an artificial, lowered ceiling. The tokonoma has a small shoji-covered window at one side which illuminates a hanging scroll, and there is usually an incense burner (in recognition of its original monastic function) or a simple flower arrangement on its floor. Adjacent to the tokonoma is the chigai-dana, a shelved storage area hidden by sliding panels, which may be used to store kimonos or bedding rather than the writing implements of Zen monks as in the past. The tokonoma and chigai-dana are separated by a thin dividing wall whose outer edge is fronted by a single polished post, the toko-bashira, a natural tree trunk stripped of its bark to reveal its gnarled surface texture. The toko-bashira has the quality of polished driftwood, intended to bring a touch of raw nature to the otherwise austere and monastic ambience of the room.
As the guest kneels on the cushions and sips green tea, the host may slide aside a rear shoji to reveal the roofless garden of the inner courtyard, his private abstraction of the natural landscape. Flowers are purposely absent, but in their place may be tiny shaped pines, a pond, and receding, rocky pathways. The mossy stones glisten with dew (or with water from a recent dousing by the host in preparation for his guests), and the air is fresh with the scent of greenery. Only upon careful inspection does the deception evaporate and the garden reveal itself to be a tiny plot surrounded by a bamboo and plaster fence; the natural world has been extracted and encapsulated into a single view, at once as authentic as the forest and as artfully detailed as a Flemish miniature. This view—a heritage of Zen shoin design—is vital to the aesthetic magic of the house, for it brings the works of man and nature together in a way that blurs their distinction. Exterior space is united with interior space just as Zen philosophy identifies the external world as an extension of man's inner life.
Indeed, all the subjective aspects of the Japanese house are Zen-inspired. The most apparent design feature is the clean lines that mark the boundaries of space, from the geometrical delineation of floor areas, brought out by the dark bindings of the tatami, to the exposed skeletal framework of columns and horizontal beams. By deliberately excluding curved lines (whose implied sensuality would be at odds with Zen ideals of austerity) in the partitioning of space, the house achieves a geometrical formality both elegant and pure. This sense of free space is further realized by the rigorous exclusion of extraneous ornamentation (again a Zen aesthetic precept) and by placing all essential furnishings in the center of the room rather than around the sides, as in the West. Design aesthetics are also served by the emphasis on the natural texture of materials and the contrast realized when different materials (such as clay walls and exposed wood) are placed side by side. Finally, the indirect lighting provided by the shoji gives daytime rooms a subjective sense of perpetual afternoon, mellowing the visual properties of the materials, softening harsh colors to pastels, and enhancing the overall feeling of naturalness in the exposed woods.
The removable partitions, both internal and external, create a sense of interdependent yet fluid space so startling to Westerners that it is often the first thing they notice in a Japanese house. The concept is, of course, derived from a basic philosophical presumption inherent in all Zen art, from ink paintings to ceramics, that freedom is most keenly perceived when it is exercised within a rigorous framework of constraints and discipline. More important, and more difficult to define, is the Zen concept of shibui, the studied restraint that might be described as knowing when to stop. Shibui, perhaps more than any other aesthetic principle, typifies the influence of Zen on Japanese ideals. It means many things, including the absence of all that is not essential; a sense of disciplined strength deliberately held in check to make what is done seem effortless; the absence of the ornate and the explicit in favor of the sober and the suggestive; and the elegance that can be realized when the purest of natural materials are integrated in a formal, balanced orchestration.3
In addition to the aesthetic aspects, there is also a quality of psychological suggestion stemming from Zen in the Japanese house. Zen monks early realized that the cell-like austerity of a room could be used to manipulate the consciousness of those caught in its precincts. The impact of this was well described by the early-twentieth-century traveler Ralph Adams Cram:
There is something about the great spacious apartments, airy and full of mellow light, that is curiously satisfying, and one feels the absence of furniture only with a sense of relief. Free from the rivalry of crowded furnishings, men and women take on a quite singular quality of dignity and importance.4
'The "singular quality of dignity and importance" is one of the most fundamental discoveries of Zen interior designers. In the absence of decorative distractions, one must concentrate on his own mind and on the minds of others present. Host and guest find their focus on one another has been deliberately enhanced, breaking down the barriers of separateness and individual identity. Each word, each gesture is rendered richer, more significant. Heinrich Engel, who understood the source of the mysterious effects which Ralph Adams Cram could only describe in bewilderment, has explained this phenomenon:
[The individual interior room] provides an environment that requires man's presence and participation to fill the void. Room in the Western residence is human without man's presence, for man's memory lingers in the multiple devices of decoration, furniture, and utility. Room in the Japanese residence becomes human only through man's presence. Without him, there is no human trace. Thus, the empty room provides the very space where man's spirit can move freely and where his thoughts can reach the very limits of their potential.5
Stated differently, the Japanese room forces introspection on those who enter it alone—a function completely in keeping with the interests of Zen. Souls who have felt the weight of too much liberty (and undeserved decorator's license) will find here a solemn retreat and a heightened sense of internal awareness. Here as never before one's mind is one's own, undistracted by the prosaic implements of living with which Westerners ordinarily engulf themselves. One should be warned, however, that this liberation of the consciousness is powerful stuff. The Japanese Zen room is a concentration cell which, although it can unite the minds of those who share it, can often tell those who enter it alone more than they want to know about their own interior lives.
The restraining discipline taught by Zen has both made the traditional Japanese house possible and reconciled its inhabitants to the practical difficulties of living in it. Although few Westerners would accept the inconvenience and sometime discomfort of these houses, many of the early Zen designers' ideals have begun to be seen in architecture and design in the West. It is well known that the Japanese integration of house and environment influenced Frank Lloyd Wright and that a purging of ornamentation was the credo of the Bauhaus. The Japanese principle of modular design is now influential in the West, and we have finally discovered the possibilities for multiple uses of space, with modern "efficiency" apartments that combine all living functions, from dining to entertaining to sleeping, in a single room. Interest has grown recently in the texture of interior materials, which it is now realized provide a necessary visual warmth, and there is increasing integration of living areas with gardens, patios, and the outdoors, and a blessed reduction in superfluous decoration, with the re-establishment of emphasis on clean lines, open space, and the quality of light. Perhaps most important of all, we in the West are finally taking to heart what the Japanese Zen monks knew in medieval times: that domestic architecture and interiors can and should fulfill a requirement in our lives that is ordinarily served by art.